History & Theory Books - Page 16

Understanding International Conflicts (6th Edition) (Longman Classics in Political Science)

Joseph S. Nye

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Understanding the contemporary world 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Understanding..., sixth edition, is an excelent introductory manual to international conflicts, but is a book of yesterday (2007), and it must to be updated. The importance of energy supply is underestimated in the text.

Primer on Conflict Theory 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

A good introduction to political theory in relation to conflict and war, especially if you are not political science student. We used it for a class on US intelligence and social trends at our university (National Defense Intelligence College)

Editorial Review:

Part of the “Longman Classics in Political Science” series, Nye's best-selling text has been completely updated with new discussions about Middle East politics, including the  Israel-Palestine dispute and the Iraq war, terrorism in general and radical Islamic terrorism in particular, the global politics of oil, and much more. Replete with illustrative examples and written in a lively, engaging manner, this is a brief, inexpensive book that students will buy and actually enjoy reading. It deftly balances theory and history to help students develop a well-rounded, informed framework for analyzing the international issues confronting us at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Security, Territory, Population (Lectures at the College De France)

Michel Foucault

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Marking a major development in Foucault's thinking, this book derives from the lecture course which he gave at the Collège de France between January and April, 1978. Taking as his starting point the notion of  "bio-power," introduced in his 1976 course Society Must be Defended, Foucault sets out to study the foundations of this new technology of power over population. Distinct from punitive, disciplinary systems, the mechanisms of power are here finely entwined with the technologies of security, and it is to 18th century developments of these technologies with which the first chapters of the book are concerned. By the fourth lecture however Foucault's attention turns, focusing on a history of "governmentality" from the first centuries of the Christian era to the emergence of the modern nation state. As Michel Sennelart explains  in his afterword, the effect of this change of direction is to "shift the center of gravity of the lectures from the question of biopower to that of government, to such an extent that the former almost entirely eclipses the former ..."  Consequently, in light of Foucault's later work, it is tempting to see these lectures as the moment of a radical turning point at which the transition to the problematic of the "government of self and others" would begin.

Democracy in America: Abridged Edition (P.S.)

Alexis de Tocqueville, Scott A. Sandage

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Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Find another edition. 2 out of 5 stars.
28 of 29 people found this review helpful.

I have three complaints about this edition of Tocqueville:
1) Nowhere in the book is the translator credited. This violates basic principles of publication and scholarship.
2) This is in fact an abridged version of the original English-language translation by Henry Reeve, dating from sometime before 1862. Unless you want to re-create the experience of a modern Frenchman confronted with de Tocqueville's somewhat archaic French by reading the text in somewhat archaic English, I would seek out any of the more recent translations: there are at least three.
3) The ellipses, that is, the abridgements, have sometimes been made to conceal some of the author's less flattering views America. In fact I suspect this is a "patriotic" abridgement. For example, in the second chapter of part one, Heffner has omitted references to some of the excesses of Puritan law in New England which the notoriously even-handed Tocqueville had cited.

Editorial Review:

The abridged edition of the enduring masterwork—a classic portrait of America's culture and people

Originally penned in the mid-nineteenth century by Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America remains the most comprehensive, penetrating, and astute picture of American life, politics, and morals ever written, as relevant today as when it first appeared in print nearly two hundred years ago.

This abridged edition by scholar and historian Scott A. Sandage includes a new introduction and editorial notes, and offers students and the general reader alike easy access to the preeminent translation by George Lawrence, widely recognized as the best translation based on the second revised and corrected text of the 1961 French edition, edited by J. P. Mayer.

Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change

G. William Domhoff

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Essential reading to understand power in America 5 out of 5 stars.
33 of 33 people found this review helpful.

In this book, Domhoff investigates where the power lies in America. He defines the 3 indicators of power, 'Who Benefits', 'Who Governs', and 'Who Wins' as the basis for determining who holds power. At the end of Chapter 1, Domhoff briefly summarizes the main points of the book:
"Using membership network analysis, this book attempts to show there is a corporate community (Chapter 2) that is the basis for a social upper class (Chapter 3). This intertwined corporate community and social upper class have developed a policy-planning network (Chapter 4) and an opinion-shaping network (Chapter 5) that give them the means to win a majority of seats in the electoral process (Chapter 6) and to shape the policies of interest to them within the federal government (Chapter 7)."

The arguments made here are very well researched, with quantitative analysis of how corporate leaders are linked with each other through their common elite socialization and self-interests, corporate directorship positions, foundation trustee status, policy planning groups, and government positions.
Domhoff gives the subject of power an honest and insightful treatment. After reading this book, I can't imagine a more logical and convincing description of how the unequal distribution of power in America is maintained, and further consolidated. Given its $30 price tag for less than 300 page paperback, I'd check the library before buying this one. Still, highly recommended!

Editorial Review:

Drawing from a power elite perspective and the latest empirical data, Domhoff�s classic text is an invaluable tool for teaching students about how power operates in U.S. society. Domhoff argues that the owners and top-level managers in large income-producing properties are far and away the dominant figures in the U.S. Their corporations, banks, and agribusinesses come together as a corporate community that dominates the federal government in Washington and their real estate, construction, and land development companies form growth coalitions that dominate most local governments. By providing empirical evidence for his argument, Domhoff encourages students to think critically about the power structure in American society and its implications for our democracy. . .

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (American Empire Project)

Greg Grandin

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

An eye-opening examination of Latin America’s role as proving ground for U.S. imperial strategies and tactics

In recent years, one book after another has sought to take the measure of the Bush administration’s aggressive foreign policy. In their search for precedents, they invoke the Roman and British empires as well as postwar reconstructions of Germany and Japan. Yet they consistently ignore the one place where the United States had its most formative imperial experience: Latin America.

A brilliant excavation of a long-obscured history, Empire’s Workshop is the first book to show how Latin America has functioned as a laboratory for American extraterritorial rule. Historian Greg Grandin follows the United States’ imperial operations, from Thomas Jefferson’s aspirations for an “empire of liberty” in Cuba and Spanish Florida, to Ronald Reagan’s support for brutally oppressive but U.S.-friendly regimes in Central America. He traces the origins of Bush’s policies to Latin America, where many of the administration’s leading lights—John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich—first embraced the deployment of military power to advance free-market economics and first enlisted the evangelical movement in support of their ventures.

With much of Latin America now in open rebellion against U.S. domination, Grandin concludes with a vital question: If Washington has failed to bring prosperity and democracy to Latin America—its own backyard “workshop”—what are the chances it will do so for the world?

Nations and Nationalism (New Perspectives on the Past)

Ernest Gellner

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Editorial Review:

Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world, yet it is surprisingly little studied and only imperfectly understood, either by its adherents or its opponents. Its irruption into the modern world is often explained as a resurgence of primitive, atavistic instincts, or as a delusion fostered by a few theoreticians, politicians or propagandists.The present volume interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. A society that aims for affluence and economic growth, Professor Gellner argues, depends on innovation, occupational mobility, mass media, universal literacy, and education in a shared, standard idiom. Taken together these transform the relationship between culture and the state. The functioning of the society depends on an all-embracing educational system, tied to one culture and protected by a state identified with that culture. The principle one state, one culture makes itself felt, and political units which do not conform to it feel the strain in the form of nationalist activity.

Nations and Nationalism (New Perspectives on the Past)

Ernest Gellner

Amazon Price: $14.35 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cornell University Press

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world, yet it is surprisingly little studied and only imperfectly understood, either by its adherents or its opponents. Its irruption into the modern world is often explained as a resurgence of primitive, atavistic instincts, or as a delusion fostered by a few theoreticians, politicians or propagandists.The present volume interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. A society that aims for affluence and economic growth, Professor Gellner argues, depends on innovation, occupational mobility, mass media, universal literacy, and education in a shared, standard idiom. Taken together these transform the relationship between culture and the state. The functioning of the society depends on an all-embracing educational system, tied to one culture and protected by a state identified with that culture. The principle one state, one culture makes itself felt, and political units which do not conform to it feel the strain in the form of nationalist activity.